South Dakota Bill To Ease Felony Punishment For First- And Second-Time Drug Consumption Offenses Advances

“I think we’d all agree that even though we have a great system, it is failing at least a certain majority of people.”

By John Hult, South Dakota Searchlight

Drug ingestion would not be a felony crime on the primary or second offense underneath the phrases of a invoice endorsed by a Senate panel on Tuesday in Pierre.

South Dakota is the one state within the nation the place a failed drug check alone can draw jail time if the drug in query is classed as a managed substance. A failed check for marijuana may end up in a misdemeanor cost and attainable jail time.

Senate Bill 83 would strip the potential for felony costs for ingesting medication like methamphetamine or cocaine from the state’s ingestion legislation till an individual is charged a 3rd time. First- or second-offense costs could be misdemeanors, punishable by as much as a yr in jail. Those convicted or pleading responsible could be required to finish a chemical dependency analysis, comply with any suggestions that stream from it, and full probation phrases, along with any jail time their sentencing choose sees match.

A 3rd or subsequent offense within the area of 10 years could be a felony—a three-strikes setup just like South Dakota’s legal guidelines on driving underneath the affect.

The Senate Judiciary Committee took testimony on the invoice final week, however deferred motion till Tuesday. After including an modification meant to encourage using a specialty probation program, the committee opted to ship the invoice to the Senate flooring on a 5–1 vote. The lone “nay” got here from Hot Springs Republican Sen. Amber Hulse. Sen. Helene Duhamel (R-Rapid City) argued towards SB 83 on Thursday however wasn’t current for Tuesday’s vote.

Supporters: Law causes extra bother than it addresses

A bipartisan smattering of lawmakers have tried to repeal or alter the felony ingestion legislation on a number of events lately. None has succeeded; most fizzled earlier than reaching a flooring vote within the House or Senate.

This yr’s effort got here from first-term Sen. Tamara Grove (R-Lower Brule) who ousted Democratic incumbent Shawn Bordeaux final fall to earn a seat that represents a closely Native American constituency.

Grove, co-pastor of the Hope Center of Lower Brule, instructed the committee she’s labored with drug customers since her personal restoration started in 2012. The legislation has accomplished nothing to scale back the stream of medication into the state or reduce its affect on customers.

What it does do, Grove stated, is straddle struggling individuals with the bags of a felony conviction. That makes it more durable to get a job or an residence, which might make it more durable to pay payments or care for kids, perpetuating cycles of hopelessness that are inclined to spur continued drug abuse.

“Punishment does not work,” Grove stated throughout final week’s debate on the measure.

Instead, she stated, it burdens the state’s courts and correctional system, the latter of which is shifting to assemble an $825 million males’s jail close to Sioux Falls to take care of what Department of Corrections Secretary Kellie Wasko calls overcrowded and unsafe circumstances on the state penitentiary. A brand new girls’s jail can also be within the works for the Rapid City space.

Like Grove, Denny Davis of Sioux Falls is a pastor. The volunteer jail chaplain and supporter of SB 83 instructed lawmakers he lately sat down with a gaggle of latest arrivals on the Sioux Falls-based penitentiary and requested what number of had an ingestion cost.

“Every one of them raised their hand,” Davis stated.

Lobbyists for the state’s trial and protection attorneys additionally testified in favor. Young individuals experimenting with medication, they stated, can wind up with felony costs or jail time because of the state’s uniquely punitive method.

Opponents: Public security issues, present probation scheme favor ingestion legislation

Calls for grace to the younger and silly could sound convincing, Lincoln County State’s Attorney Tom Wollman stated, however the actuality is that folks don’t fail a drug check someday and wind up in jail the subsequent.

“It does not happen,” Wollman stated. “What happens is that individuals who are convicted of these low-level drug offenses for the possession of the controlled substance and the ingestion of the controlled substance go out on supervised probation, and there are many success stories from that.”

Wollman famous that state legislation has a presumption of probation for individuals convicted of low-level drug felonies. That implies that except a choose has a compelling motive to not, the first- and second-offense ingestion defendants referenced in Grove’s invoice could be on probation with out stripping the crime of its felony standing.

He additionally stated most individuals charged with ingestion are usually charged with thefts or assaults. Drug customers “are creating all manner of victims in our community,” Wollman stated, and the ingestion legislation provides prosecutors one other device for holding them accountable.

Grant Flynn, talking on behalf of Attorney General Marty Jackley (R), stated he finds the concept medication within the physique are completely different from medication exterior of it “perplexing” within the legal justice context.

“We don’t want that substance going into a person, because of the significant negative effects that that has,” Flynn stated. “So why would we now diminish the criminality of the precise factor that we’re attempting to forestall from occurring?

A felony cost, Flynn argued, alerts the seriousness of drug use and will act as a deterrent to those that may contemplate it a innocent experiment.

Tuesday modification backs probation program

The Judiciary committee voted to defer a vote on SB 83 after Thursday’s debate, partly to permit some undecided senators to ponder the change’s implications.

Republican Sen. Greg Blanc, a Rapid City pastor, instructed his committee fellows the controversy left him “torn between responsibility and redemption.”

On Tuesday, Grove moved an modification to encourage judges to make use of a probationary framework often called the HOPE program in first- and second-offense ingestion circumstances. It’s a type of intensive supervision that includes random drug assessments and “swift and certain” sanctions for violations.

That drew reward from Blanc. He stated he’s troubled that South Dakota’s excessive incarceration charge—14th in the nation, Wasko has instructed lawmakers—is so excessive in contrast with its low inhabitants.

“Something has to be done here,” Blanc stated on Tuesday. “I think we’d all agree that even though we have a great system, it is failing at least a certain majority of people.”

This story was first published by South Dakota Searchlight.

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Photo courtesy of Markus Spiske.